Spin Gating of Mesoscopic Devices

TL;DR

This review explores how external spin control, via magnetic exchange and spin-orbit coupling, can modulate electronic properties in mesoscopic devices, expanding the scope of device manipulation beyond charge-based gating.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of spin gating in mesoscopic devices, focusing on mechanisms like magnetic exchange and spin-orbit coupling, and discusses various phenomena demonstrating this control.

Findings

Magnetic exchange interaction enables spin gating in magnetic nanodevices.

Spin-orbit coupling, especially the Rashba effect, allows external spin control in low-dimensional conductors.

Spin gating influences phenomena such as magnetic shuttling, Rashba spin splitting, and spin-dependent superconductivity.

Abstract

Inefficient screening of electric fields in nanoconductors makes electric manipulation of electronic transport in nanodevices possible. Accordingly, electrostatic (charge) gating is routinely used to affect and control the Coulomb electrostatics and quantum interference in modern nanodevices. Besides their charge, another (quantum mechanical) property of electrons - their spin - is at the heart of modern spintronics, a term implying that a number of magnetic and electrical properties of small systems are simultaneously harvested for device applications. In this review the possibility to achieve "spin gating" of mesoscopic devices, i.e. the possibility of an external spin control of the electronic properties of nanodevices is discussed. Rather than the Coulomb interaction, which is responsible for electric-charge gating, we consider two other mechanisms for spin gating. These are on the one hand the magnetic exchange interaction in magnetic devices and on the other hand the spin-orbit coupling ("Rashba effect"), which is prominent in low dimensional conductors. A number of different phenomena demonstrating the spin gating phenomenon will be discussed, including the spintro-mechanics of magnetic shuttling, Rashba spin splitting, and spin-gated weak superconductivity.